A. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method for monitoring the transport of bank notes.
B. Related Art
For the processing of bank notes it is provided that the bank notes are input to an input region as loose stacks and singled by a singler. The single bank notes are transferred by the singler to a transport system and supplied to processing. Conventional forms of processing for bank notes are acceptance, checking and recognition of the bank notes by means of sensors, whereby authenticity, type (currency, denomination), condition (soiling, damage), etc, are determined. Based on the results of checking and recognition, the bank notes are thereafter e.g. sorted, stacked, bundled, destroyed, etc.
For the processing of bank notes in bank note processing machines it is of fundamental importance that the transport of the bank notes is effected without error by the transport system, i.e. for example no jammings or delays may occur.
For monitoring the proper transport of the bank notes it is known to provide light barriers at one or several positions in the transport system, which capture the transport of the bank notes. The light barriers detect the presence or absence of a bank note at the respective position of the light barrier. In particular, leading edge and trailing edge of the transported bank notes are recognized.
If problems occur upon transport, it cannot be readily recognized, whereby these problems are caused.
Starting out from the mentioned defects, the invention is based on the object to state a method for monitoring the transport of bank notes, which makes possible an analysis of occurred transport errors.
The invention starts out from a method for monitoring the transport of bank notes in a transport system, having sensors arranged along the transport system for capturing transported bank notes and a control device for monitoring and controlling the transport system on the basis of signals of the sensors, from which the control device derives a presence or absence of a bank note at the place of the respective sensor, in which method the signals of all the sensors are stored in a memory by the control device, wherein the signals of all the sensors are assigned a unique time specification or cycle specification, and all the transported bank notes are assigned by the control device a unique object code, which is linked with the unique time specification or cycle specification, and that the occurrence and type of errors upon transport of the bank notes are derived through evaluation of the stored signals of the sensors, for which purpose the signals of the sensors, that are provided with the unique time specifications or cycle specifications, are associated with the bank notes denoted via the unique object codes.
The advantage of the solution according to the invention is that through the evaluation of the stored signals of the sensors there is made possible an analysis of transport errors which allows determining or at least narrowing down the place in the transport system where the transport error has occurred. From the stored signals of the sensors there can be additionally derived statements about the type of an error that has occurred.
In an advantageous development it is provided, in addition, to normalize all the signals of the sensors that are associated with a unique object code to one of the sensors, in particular the first sensor in the transport system, for which purpose the unique time specifications or cycle specifications for each sensor to be normalized are shifted by a run-time difference or a cycle number, wherein the run-time difference or the cycle number result from the distance of the sensor to be respectively normalized from the sensor serving as a normalization basis, a transport speed employed in the transport system, as well as the location of the sensor to be respectively normalized in relation to the sensor in the transport system that serves as a normalization basis.
This makes possible a particularly simple evaluation and analysis of transport errors, since all the signals of the sensors that are present for a transported bank note seem to be present at one single point in time, which is why deviations in the transport of the bank note are particularly easy to determine.
In other advantageous developments it is provided to derive additional information items denoting the type and/or quality of the bank notes from signals of a sensor device and to store them so as to be linked with the object code of the respective bank note. Likewise, additional information items of the control device denoting the transport of the bank notes can be linked and stored with the object code of the respective bank note.
The additional information items denoting the type and/or quality or the transport of the bank notes make it possible that upon evaluation of the stored signals of the sensors a selection can be made as to which sensors must be taken into account for the respective bank note. This makes it possible to limit the number of the sensors or their signals that are to be taken into account for evaluating.
In FIG. 1 there is represented a basic structure of a bank note processing machine 100 for processing bank notes.